


it's the tether that lets you fly

by atlantisairlock



Category: Gravity (2013)
Genre: F/M, Mentions of Death, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Suicide, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 02:50:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1288450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/atlantisairlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Never leave me,</i> he conveys to her with a squeeze of his hand.</p><p><i>I promise,</i> she answers wordlessly, and she doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's the tether that lets you fly

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Rising Sun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101349) by [anr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr). 



"Ready?"

"Ready."

 

 

When they wrench the airlock open, water rushes into the tiny capsule and the pressure forces them back into the shuttle. At that moment it's pure terror and panic and  _oh my god we made it so far are we going to die here cosmic irony_ but Ryan manages to kick her way through the murky water and drags Matt with her insistently, refusing to let go of his arm. 

" _Swim_ , Matt," she yells at him as he lashes out uselessly, looking back at the shuttle that's slowly, slowly sinking into the depth of the lake they've landed in. Ryan grinds her teeth in frustration as she sees Matt's eyes beginning to close from exhaustion and she pushes him upwards so he can breathe, removing the spacesuit that's weighing her down and letting it sink to the bottom. " _Matt,_ get the suit off, get the  _suit off,_ wake up!"

They both shed the heavy, cumbersome ensemble and Ryan feels an unexplainable pang when she can't see it anymore as it disappears into the lake. They manage to make it to the shore, where he all but collapses on the muddy waterside and she claws at the sludge and it gets under her nails and as she begins to stand on weak, shaky legs it gets in between her toes and suddenly the enormity of the situation just settles on her shoulders.

They are back. After that bloody  _cataclysm_ up there... Ryan looks into the sky and can't believe that she was up there,  _in there,_ just mere  _moments_ ago; it's as if she just burst through a cloud, she feels like they punched a hole in the atmosphere. They are  _back,_ on Earth - to hell with exactly where they are on this big blue planet, but they are  _back._ Safe. She takes a few gulps of fresh air, taking in the scent of earth and dirt and  _everything,_ can't believe how it's not oxygen from a can anymore. 

"Matt, we're back," she stumbles over to his side and lifts his head so he can look at her. "Kowalski - we're  _back._ They're going to come get us. We're okay, we're okay now." 

He manages to open his eyes and look at her, and then he props himself up and rests on her shoulder. "My god, we're back."

They greet their rescuers on their feet, supporting each other, and it's only when they're on the helicopter back to base that Ryan lets herself close her eyes, and rest, and grieve. 

 

 

It is a media circus. It is an endless slew of briefings and interviews that feel more like interrogations. They are sent for mandatory therapy and physio. Their 'miraculous journey' is splashed on every form of media they can imagine. Within two weeks someone is calling to ask about turning their 'thrilling adventure' into a blockbuster.

Ryan shouts a loud cuss word back at them and slams the phone down.

The worst part, the  _worst_ part, is when they're forcing smiles for the press on the way to attend a conference and one tiny little girl pushes her way up all the way to just behind the safety barrier. Her eyes are alight with hope and awe as she looks up at them and when Ryan and Matt are close enough she yells to them that " _one day I wanna do what you guys did!_ "

They both freeze and all the memories just return in an unrelenting cascade, this little girl who  _looks so much like Sarah,_ Ryan realises, and  _has no idea just what we went through up there,_ Matt thinks. 

 _No, you don't, no, you can't, you don't want to watch a colleague, a friend get his helmet punched through with space debris, you don't want to feel like you're about to die, you don't want to feel that utter desolation, you don't_ but Matt sees Ryan begin to tremble in the way she does before she's about to break, and he puts his hand on her hip and guides her to the rendezvous point. 

They just want some  _peace,_ is that too much to ask?

 

Ryan's therapy (  **n. pl. treatment of illness or disability** ) deals with words. She keeps a pocket dictionary (  **n. pl. reference book containing an alphabetical list of words, with information given for each word** ) with her now, at all times, and she begins to recite (  **v. i. to recite or repeat something from memory** ) the meaning of words when people say them or when she thinks them. Words are _stable_ (  **adj. not subject to sudden or extreme change or fluctuation** ).

The dictionary reminds her that everything (  **pron. all things or all of a group of things** ) has a meaning - all words have meanings. Everything has a meaning,  _everything has a meaning._ Every word she says, every word anyone else says has to be clear, it can't be garbled, it has to be exact, it has to be  _perfect_ because everything else is crashing to pieces around her. 

She leafs through the pages and reads the meanings for words like  _tragedy, catastrophe, calamity._

Matt takes her hand and gently helps her turn to the pages for  _hope, safety_ and  _acceptance._ _  
_

He doesn't tell her about his therapy.

 

 

The media circus dies down after a week. The news is fickle. 

They take advantage of it, and try to go about their normal lives.

 

 

"I'll go get us a drink, okay?" Matt intones every word with as much clarity and deliberation as possible - he knows, now, just how much she needs words to be crisp and perfectly enunciated (  **v. tr. to pronounce; articulate** ) so they sound real, so they sound like they're _there,_ because she is so terrified that all this is just an illusion that her brain is creating so it'll hurt less before she suffocates to death in space. Ryan nods, tries to keep a straight face as he tells her to just sit on the bench at wait for him, that he will be right back, he  _promises._

Watching him turn his back and disappear into the convenience store makes the instinctive panic leap through every single nerve ending, and she forces herself to swallow the bile that rises in her throat. He'll come back. He'll be there. He's not going to die.

They come to the park a lot now. It's tranquil but not totally soundless - its atmosphere is the completely opposite of frigid, forbidding space. She still trips over her own feet a lot, stumbles over nothing, and her knees go weak even when she isn't straining herself. Ryan sometimes wonders if it isn't her mind but her body that's regressing back to the period when she was in outer space, in zero-gravity, without a solid surface beneath her soles, so she and Matt take long walks here - during periods of time where human activity is high so they don't feel the isolation and despondency that's all-too-familiar from their odyssey, to help Ryan get used to walking on land again. 

It is a good routine. It makes her feel safe, feel secure. Ryan ponders it all on the bench, and she doesn't even see it coming. 

The dogs are at her feet before she knows it.

They are tiny (  **adj. extremely small; minute** ). They are adorable (  **adj. de** **lightful, lovable, and charming** _)_. They are just toy poodles, two of which are chocolate brown and the third white with light brown paws. They're on a leash, and a young man's holding the other end. They are just dogs  _dogs dogs DOGS DOGS_ -

they bark, loud. They bark at her, tongues out, and it's excited and curious and enthusiastic but Ryan just snaps back to the past, instantaneously - just flashes back and her mind remembers the shuttle in vivid hues and hyperrealistic curves and edges and she could  _swear_ (  **v. tr. to say or affirm earnestly and with great conviction** ) she's back in the seat of the Soyuz, she could swear she's there with an unconscious Matt and convinced that she's about to die.

Suddenly the image, the situation, the flashback consumes Ryan's field of vision and she's not just remembering it, she's  _back_ in the shuttle and desperate and despairing and she's dying, they're both going to die, they're not going to make it. All of a sudden the overwhelming doubt returns, crashes in waves against the shore of her mind -  _we never made it, it was all a dream, I've been hallucinating, I'm going to wake up and I'll be in the shuttle and the oxygen levels will be going down and we'll both die in space, this isn't happening, this isn't happening_ \- and she's losing her grip of reality. All she hears is deafening barking, reminiscence of Aningaaq and his huskies and his baby, and it's mixed with distant screams.

It takes her a moment to realise that the source of the screams is in fact, herself.

Her vision swims, blurs, reality - _is it real, is it real,_ someone tell her it's real,  _real is an adjective, real: being or occurring in fact or actuality -_  cuts through the snaps of the shuttle like static interference on a tv screen. Ryan is vaguely aware of the fact that she's fallen to her knees covering her ears and she's shrieking at the top of her voice, that the dogs have been frightened off and have scampered back to their owner's side, that some people are edging away from her, parents are covering their children's eyes and ears and some people are crouching down at her side asking  _miss are you okay are you okay_ and she wants more than anything to answer them but she can't get ahold of herself, of rationality, and the screams that are bursting from her throat like some sick symphony are stopping her from saying anything else. There are murmurs (  **n. a low, indistinct, continuous sound, a mutter** ) from everywhere around her and they are soft, quiet, but they are growing louder and louder and so are the barks, her screeching, Ryan's convinced her eardrums are going to rupture and split. Too many voices, too many breaths, too much, too much, too much, it is an overload and she's going to break  _break break_ (  **v. tr. to cause to separate into pieces suddenly or violently; smash** ) she can't-

In the midst of the deluge of sound, amongst the consternation the pandemonium the hubbub (  **n. confusion; tumult** ) that's tearing her apart and eating her out from the inside, Ryan hears a familiar voice, one which she could pick out amongst a crowd of millions in a second. She's memorised its cadences and its inflections and she flails wildly in its direction - it's distorted, gibberish, but Ryan knows it's  _Matt._

"Ryan." He's pushed his way through the small crowd and he's at her side,  _oh thank god thank god thank god_ he holds her close in a tight embrace and her cries subside almost as quickly as they began. "Ryan, I'm here, it's okay. We're here, we're on Earth, we're safe. We're not in space anymore, I've got you, I've got you. It's okay. It's okay." 

 _It's okay, it's okay._ She clings on to his shirt, fists at it and buries her face in the hollow of his shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably. She doesn't protest when he lifts her into his arms and begins to hurry off towards the carpark where the Ford is parked, just clutches to him and repeats to herself over and over again.  _It's okay. It's okay. It's okay._

He sets her down on the backseat of the car and cradles her head, looks her in the eye. "Are you okay?"

"It was the dogs," she blurts out. "It was the dogs, I was so scared, I thought, I thought, I thought we were back, I thought..." Ryan trails off but she doesn't need to say more - Matt kisses her forehead and lets her stay in his arms until she manages to regain control of her emotions - then, he digs into the plastic bag and offers her a drink from the store. Ryan accepts the bottle of Mountain Dew with a grateful grin and tearstained eyes. Her hands tremble when she uncaps the bottle and begins to lift it to her lips, and Matt has to wrap his fingers around her wrist and help her lift it to her mouth to drink. 

"I've got you, okay?"

Ryan nods, and leans against him, trying to stop herself from shaking. He lets her. 

 

 

At first, Matt doesn't seem very fazed by the entire saga. The media hype can't touch him. His therapist says he's managing everything much better as compared to Ryan. His emotional state is more balanced, more stable. Nothing seems to trigger him - not barking dogs, not claustrophobia, not fire, not open bodies of water. Ryan's been temporarily banned from driving because of her nervous tics and her breakdowns, so Matt always slides into the driver's seat, turns the radio on and they just drive.

She's envious of him, envious that he can face the tragedy better than she can. Sometimes he has nightmares and wakes her up with soft whimpers - but that's nothing compared to the times when she pretty much  _screams_ herself awake and finds Matt holding her down while she thrashes around wildly, crying out about Shariff and Hubble and the Tiangong and it's him who has to make sure she doesn't throw herself off the bed in her frenzy (  **n. pl. a state of violent mental agitation or wild excitement** ). 

He seems so...  _okay._

It's a while before she realises that he isn't.

Matt is a good actor. That's one of the things Ryan discovers when they get closer. He hides what he's really feeling from his therapist effortlessly. Nothing triggers him - key word  _nothing._

It's a Tuesday evening when she realises that - literally - the presence of nothing is what makes him break out in a sweat and makes his mind shatter. He's fallen asleep on the sofa in their two-storey after making dinner, with the radio beside him tuned to a classic rock station. She manages to smile, and she leans over to turn the radio off and take it away before he stretches an arm out in his sleep and sends it crashing to the floor.

Ryan's just turned it off when Matt's eyes open and the desperate, ragged breath he heaves frightens the wits out of her. There is a frenetic (  **adj. frenzied; she's beginning to do it less often her therapist says it means progress but it still happens; frantic** ) look in his eyes as he turns to her and grabs the radio, fumbling with the buttons and turning it back on. The strains of Blue Oyster Cult's  _Don't Fear The Reaper_ come back on but Matt still struggles to force air into his lungs, grabbing uselessly at his chest and trying in vain to speak and that's when Ryan realises he's having a panic attack. 

It's a few breaths into a paper bag, a lot of comfort and fifteen agonising minutes later that Matt's breathing goes back to normal and his hands, feet and jaw lose their numbness, and he manages to collapse into Ryan's arms, letting her stroke his matted hair back from his forehead and just... hold him. 

"Don't... don't do that again," Matt rasps hoarsely once he can muster up the strength to vocalise his thoughts. "Don't just... don't just turn off the music, Ryan. Please don't."

That's when it dawns on her properly - that  _that's_ his trigger (  **n. tr. v. to set off; initiate** ).  _That's_ his trigger. That's what makes him break down and makes him flash back to  _then,_ just like her. That's what makes him shatter into a million tiny shards that don't seem to have any way of being put back together. It's silence. It's the lack of sound. And that's when she realises why Matt always has the radio on when they have one of their long, pointless drives, where they make the rounds around a thousand routes with the same destination - home. Always plugs his headphones in when he's doing something leisure related. Always has white noise on when he works in the kitchen or the bedroom or the garage. 

Ryan picks up a paper towel and wipes the sweat from his forehead. "Okay." 

She needs his voice, when she is falling to pieces. Ryan discovers that he needs her touch as much as he needs something to break the silence. 

 

 

Silence, Matt tells her, is suffocating (  **v. intr. to become or feel suppressed; be stifled** ). She knows, he knows she knows, but at the same time she knows she wasn't one who was drifting in total isolation, who was certain he was going to die (  **intr. v. to cease living; become dead; expire, Shariff, Evans, Thomas, Ryan the therapist says with that soothing tone you mustn't concentrate on words like that** ) in total silence until Ryan managed to get him back.  _One of the worst ways to die is by suffocation. Trust me._

She does. Which is why she tries it.  _I should be dead_ is her rationale. _I should be dead, Shariff is dead, they're all dead, I should be dead. I should have died, not them. It should have been all of us, or none of us at all._

While Matt's out getting groceries on his run, Ryan turns the gas on, shuts the doors, closes the windows, seals the room and just... waits. 

She's seen his cuts, even if he doesn't realise she notices. He hides razor blades in his closet. He wants to die as much as she does, so she doesn't really expect it when it gets a little hazy (  **adj. indistinct; vague** ) and she's not sure whether she's hallucinating when there's a lot of yelling and banging on doors and Ryan  _thinks_ Matt comes in - can't he let her just die, die, no, but wait, but maybe she _is_ just dying, dying, dead. 

She wakes up to the clean, antiseptic scent of a hospital and Matt standing over her, watching with sad, sad (  ** _adj. somber, sorrow, unhappiness_** ) eyes.

"I almost lost you, Doctor Stone," he says and she chokes back a sob, feeling the gritty, aching pain in her throat and her eyes stinging. "Don't do that again, okay?"

In response she touches his wrist and feels the healing scars. "Then you don't, either."

Ryan sees him flinch (  **intr. v. to recoil, as from something unpleasant or difficult** ), but to his credit he nods. "Okay. Deal." He places his hand in hers and they accept each other's help, in a sense. The promise that they'll live for the other, even if they can't live for themselves. 

 

 

He shows her the blemished skin, after he throws his blades out, lets her run her fingers over the raised scars and count them. 

"Ten cuts every time?"

Matt smiles mirthlessly. "Ten cuts every time."

"Why?"

"For the STS-157 Five. For Hubble, for the Soyuz, for the Tiangong, for the Shenzou." He pauses, glances at her. "For your Sarah."

Ryan doesn't respond, but closes her hand gently around his wrist.

 

 

Matt brings it up on another long drive of theirs, like it's dinner conversation. "Why'd you choose suffocation, anyway? It told you it was a nasty way to go."

"STS-157 had to go nastily too."

A long pause. When he speaks again, it's taken on a softer tone. "That wasn't your fault, you know." 

"Yeah, the therapist always tells me." 

"I'm telling you now."

"I was the one who didn't -"

"Ryan. It's _not_ your fault."

Silence. Matt fidgets in his seat and begins to hum.

 

 

"Tell me more about Sarah?"

Ryan stops squeezing ketchup over her fries. "Why?"

He doesn't reply, just hums. Ryan stares down at her plate and works up her courage.

"She was... she looked like me."

"Beautiful little kid, then."

"She liked Disney. She liked swimming. And her favourite colour was red. She wanted to be a fashion designer - when she grew up." Her breath hitches. 

Matt puts an arm around her shoulder, and she leans in.

 

 

"What happened to your ex-wife?"

"What, after she left?"

"Yeah."

"You know, I have no idea. Not my business any more." Matt shrugs. "Do  _you_ know what happened to Sarah's father?"

"No." Her tone makes it clear that she hasn't lost any sleep over it. "He didn't stay in touch with us, even for his daughter. So I didn't bother keeping in touch either."

Matt slides his thumb against Ryan's wrist, slow and gentle and rhythmic. "I think I'd have liked to know Sarah. Or raised her, with you." _  
_

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

He laughs.

 

 

"You don't carry that dictionary around any more."

"Too heavy." Ryan glances at him, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. "You don't always have the radio on any more, either."

Matt smiles. "Yeah."

 

 

They begin to heal, with stitched wounds and bandaged injuries deep down on the inside. 

 

 

There is a memorial, a plaque. They are asked to attend the opening ceremony. They say yes.

Matt asks Ryan if she wants to visit their crewmates' families. She says yes. 

They're asked if they want to return to their jobs. They say no. 

Matt goes freelance and local. Ryan goes back to doing part-time in a hospital. 

A year passes. 

 

 

They were tethered together in space to keep them safe, to keep them together. 

Matt feels that they still are, attached together, come hell or high water. They still reach for each other's hands when they sense imminent danger, they still press close to each other when they need comfort, they grip too tight and clutch too close and don't let go for far too long. But then - as he knows, very well - it's the tether that lets you fly. 

Ryan isn't sure if she loves him because she needs him, or she needs him because she loves him. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter when they discover that she's going to have a baby, when they look each other in the eyes, when they both already  _know_ that it will be a girl and her name will be anything but Sarah. It doesn't matter when they talk about adoption, about giving this child more siblings, because they know what it's like to be lost, lonely, longing, to want someone to just be _there,_ to rescue you when you can't rescue yourself on your own.

They no longer go for therapy. Ryan does not flinch - much - when she hears the neighbour's new fox terrier bark, constantly, from across the fence. Matt can cope with silence, can cope without listening to background music all the time. And they stay together, because the alternative is unthinkable. They hold each other close at nights; there is stillness and there are whispers, there are kisses on foreheads, temples, lips. 

 _Never leave me,_ he conveys to her with a squeeze of his hand.

 _I promise,_ she answers wordlessly, and she doesn't. 


End file.
